McKeever: After countless trips, this one was different

Published
7:03 pm EDT, Thursday, May 20, 2010

The parade of pink shirts, ribbons and hats stretches counterclockwise along the perimeter of Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field from the deepest reaches of center field past third base. My daughter, pausing from her inhalation of tortilla chips drowned in industrial-grade cheese sauce, asks who these people are.

"I think they are people who had breast cancer. They are trying to raise awareness of a disease that tends to affect women, and give people hope for a cure," I say.

She digs back into her nachos and I return to filling out the lineups in my scorecard. A few minutes and a layer of DayGlo orange glop later, she asks: "How long does your hair need to be to cut it off and give to kids?"

I set down my beer. "You mean like Locks of Love? Where they make wigs for kids who lost their hair from cancer treatments? ... Do you want to do that?"

She nods and the May sunlight shimmers off the florescent droplets of goo on the corners of her mouth. "My teacher said she's going to cut her hair for kids," she says. "She does it every year."

As we talk, I'm internally dumbfounded. My 10-year-old girl has been avoiding a serious haircut for years with her split ends now approaching the middle of her back. Her mother and I regularly tell her to pull back those dirty blonde locks to stop them from falling into her food, then follow up with a request for more frequent washings of these tangled strands to free them of leftovers from many meals past.

I start to wonder how much our visiting Chicago today, in addition to her teacher's decision and the sight of all these cancer survivors smiling and waving, is influencing this discussion. My daughter and I have been trekking here, first from Texas and now from Connecticut, every few months for more than seven years. Here she meets with autoimmune specialists who scrutinize the shape of the tiniest capillaries in her fingernail beds as well as the size and strength of the largest bones and muscles in her legs. She has been here, as she is today, in the guise of any normally healthy child. She has also been here when filled with fever, swollen on medication and no stronger than a politician's promise.

--¦ so I think you only need to let it go a few more inches if you really want to do it," I hear myself say.

"And how much do they pay?"

"Pardon?"

"How much money do they give you for your hair?"

"It's a donation, honey," I say. "You give it to them for free so they can help a needy child."

"Dang," she says, looking at the nacho ruins in the cardboard holder on her lap. "I wanted to make some cash."

Several hours later, in a hotel room two blocks from the twinkling lights and retail mecca of the Midwest known as Chicago's Magnificent Mile, I interrupt my daughter's viewing of a third consecutive episode of "19 Kids and Counting."

"You still want to donate your hair?" She nods. "Even though you don't get paid for it?"

"Yeah," she says.

I don't ask why. I stroke her long, grubby mane, but just once as my ring finger gets snagged in a knot of sunscreen, maple syrup and, of course, cheese sauce. Then, I tell her to hit the showers.

Kevin McKeever, a Stamford native and resident, is a freelance writer. His column appears every other Friday. E-mail him at kevin@writeonkevin.com.